Evolutionist John Stott died on 27 July 2011at the age of 90. For many years he was Rector (senior minister) of All Souls Anglican Church Langham Place, London UK, and long before Francis Collins and BioLogos were promoting evolution, Stott wrote: “...several forms of pre-Adamic ‘hominid’ may have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them homo erectus. ... But Adam was the first homo divinus, if I may coin a phrase, the first man to whom may be given the Biblical designation ‘made in the image of God’. Precisely what the divine likeness was, which was stamped upon him, we do not know, for Scripture nowhere tells us. But Scripture seems to suggest that it includes rational, moral, social, and spiritual faculties which make man unlike all other creatures and like God the creator, and on account of which he was given ‘dominion’ over the lower creation”. John Stott, Understanding the Bible: Expanded Edition; 54-56) [Original edition: Scripture Union, London (1984), pp. 48f.]

Editorial Comment: It may be “conceivable” to learned theologians that God created Adam out of a pre-existing hominid, but this is not what Genesis says. The first chapters in the Biblical record clearly state that the first man, Adam, was made from “dust of the ground”, i.e. raw materials, not some pre-existing creature. Genesis also clearly states that Eve was made from tissue taken from Adam. Thus Adam and Eve were separate creations, but of one flesh, and ultimately the whole human race is derived from this one man Adam. In John Stott’s story, God at best had to stamp his image separately on at least one female hominid.

Sadly, John Stott was a prominent example of how the Church academics gave up the battle for the truth when evolution became the acceptable dogma in the world during the 20th century. It is not surprising that having abandoned confidence in the real history in Genesis, Stott beginning in the 1980’s publicly and seriously questioning the literal truth of Jesus teaching on a real eternal future in hell fire. Stott was writer of many books on the Bible and Christianity and was considered one of the world’s leading evangelical preachers and writers for many decades. Wonder how his rewrites are getting on as the real Jesus stares over his shoulder. (Ref. theology, theologians, compromise)